


Lost Boy

by ailurish



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 15:15:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailurish/pseuds/ailurish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes your tire just pops in the right place at the right time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Boy

It has to be a million degrees outside. The cars whizzing past on the highway are shimmering in the heat, making them hard to look at, so Jared looks at his shoes instead. He's trying to ignore the way the hot metal of his car is searing through his t-shirt where he leans against it, toeing at the gravel, when he hears the crunch of tires pulling up behind him on the shoulder of the road.

Jared straightens, shielding his eyes to peer at the white pickup truck. It's swallowed up in brightness for a moment until his eyes adjust to the sunlight. The driver pops open his door and stands on the frame, one hand still on the door handle as he leans out. "Hey," he says, "Need any help?"

Jared shakes his head, still shielding his eyes. "Got a flat. I already called Triple A, though."

The guy drops to the ground, swinging his door shut. "You got a spare?" Jared glances at his trunk and nods. The guy quirks one corner of his mouth up as he rounds the front of his truck, says, "You don't need Triple A for that," and, "I got a jack in the truck if you need one," and Jared's brain functions skid to a halt. This guy's hair is cropped short, green eyes and freckles. And that shirt. That shirt is too warm for a day like this. Who wears a button down in zillion degree weather? But his sleeves are rolled up past his elbows, and he doesn't seem bothered by the heat. His truck probably has better A/C than the crappy, 15 year old Taurus does. His truck. He has a jack in there, if Jared needs one.

"If you want my help, that is," the guy is saying, and Jared realizes he's been staring.

"No! Uh, thank you. I mean. Yeah man, I'd appreciate it."

So they fish the spare donut out of the Taurus' trunk and it turns out that Jared has a jack in there anyway, so the guy—Jensen, he tells him, with a friendly nod—shows him how to undo the bolts in a star pattern, how to safely remove the tire and tighten the new one into place; where the nearest Discount Tire is and how to make sure they don't try to sell him a new one. They had leaned over the flat and rolled it until they found a nail stuck up top, well away from the side, easy to patch up.

The flat doesn't fit with all the junk that is always crammed into Jared's trunk, so it has to go in the backseat. Jared watches Jensen get back into his pickup and pull out onto the highway. He watches the gleam of white paint until it disappears, then gets into the car and tells himself to forget about it. Jensen. He'll never see him again.

For the next couple weeks Jared doesn't think about him. Much. He passes white pickup trucks on the highway a couple times just to glance sideways and see if maybe it's Jensen in there, but of course it's not. It's a middle aged guy the first time and a woman talking on her cell phone the next. He thinks about the time when he was ten and the family dog got out, how they drove around calling her name out the windows for hours. They put up signs all over town: LOST DOG. Lost boy, Jared thinks. This is ridiculous, he thinks. He puts it out of his mind.

(Green eyes, he thinks.)

*

Three weeks after his Taurus blew out a tire and left him stranded at the side of the road, one week after he decides to forget about Jensen completely, and just before the gas meter on the dash points to empty, he sees him. At the gas station. The odds have got to be, what, one in twenty thousand? Jared goes in to pay for his gas and the guy's just standing there in line, like the universe purposefully set this whole coincidence up to fuck with his head. He hovers near a display of snack chips, wondering what to say, when Jensen finishes paying and turns to leave. And it's not like Jared is easy to miss, standing there in the middle of the convenience store. Jensen says, "Hey! Small world, huh?" and Jared says, "Uh."

The guy's eyes crinkle a little at the corners when he smiles. "Car doin' alright? No more hanging out on the side of the road?"

"The car's a piece of shit," Jared blurts out. Oh god. Why didn't his mouth consult his brain, first?

Jensen chuckles, pushing his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and rocking back on his heels. "Can't argue with you there."

"I was thinking," Jared starts, mouth suddenly dry, "about, you know. Getting a new car. Er, well. A truck."

"Yeah?"

No. "Well, uh, I have a couple dogs. I always thought a dog needs a truck to hang his head out the window, you know?"

The guy is quiet for a moment, still with his hands in his pockets. Jared hears the jingle of keys and looks to see Jensen hefting them in his right hand, biting at the corner of his lip. Jared thinks about biting that lip, too. He tries not to think about it, but he does. So when Jensen finally swings the keys around on his finger, smiling that quirky, eye-crinkling smile again, Jared feels his face grow hot.

"You wanna try mine out?" he asks, and it takes a moment for Jared to understand that he means the truck. "I'm not busy. Maybe we can pick up your dogs, see if they like it. If—you know, if you want." The smile shifts and now Jensen is looking at him nervously, thumbs in his pockets.

The family dog, when he was ten. They stopped looking for her after three days. She showed up less than a week later on the front porch, wagging her tail so hard that her body seemed more like a blur of fur. He'll never forget that.

"Sure," Jared says, feeling the grin spread across his face. "They'd love it."

Jensen grins back.


End file.
